Usually, our dinners out at new places go like this:
RJ: I don't really like this place. The food is pretty good, but it's too loud and trendy. And I think I hear techno.
Me: Come on, the food is great here and it's crowded because it's GOOD, not trendy.
Or:
Me: This place is old and rustic, which is interesting, but the food is extremely mediocre.
RJ: Would you just eat already.
So, we have different likes and tastes, it makes our marriage exciting. But when making plans for RJ's arrival in Boulder over the 4th of July, I thought he would like the little mining town of Nederland, CO, which is about a 20 mile drive from Boulder up in the mountains. The town is most famous for it's lovely reservoir and the springtime festival, Frozen Dead Guy Days. There's a dude that had himself cryogenically frozen in the hopes that when there is a cure for heart disease, he can be reanimated. Seriously. At least they get to have a party every year.
Anyway, I go about looking online at the small group of restaurants in Nederland. There are some brew pubs (fine but boring) and a couple nicer looking places. I come upon the Black Forest Restaurant which has a quaint little website that boasts its authentic German cuisine. I can go for that. It's not my favorite type of food by any means, but I've been to several great German places in Chicago in my life. They were all reasonably priced, just different enough to make it interesting and had some good beer goin' on. And most importantly, RJ will like it and be able to find something he wants. The menu at Black Forest looked similar to what I was accustomed to with German places. There were no prices on the website menu, but prices change frequently. I've worked in the restaurant biz. I know this.
So, we take a lovely scenic drive up to Nederland last night. It's a beautiful night, it's the 4th of July weekend (not that I care, but apparently some people do), and we are enjoying each other's company. We pull into the restaurant a little early. I'd made reservations for 7pm. It's a rustic yet large place, clearly designed with a Bavarian style in mind. Wood everywhere, nice sign, etc. We walk up the 20 or so stairs to get to the door and walk in. We look to the right, there are two huge dining rooms, we look to the left, another large dining room. The host, which was the same gentleman I'd spoken with on the phone, comes to greet us and take us in. I say we have a reservation for two at 7pm and he takes us to the room on the left. I keep making a point about having a reservation because we clearly did not need one. The place is empty. And huge. But more importantly...empty. Now, at this moment my stomach kind of cramps up. That gut feeling you get when you feel something is terribly wrong. For a moment I was relieved to see that two tables of the perhaps forty tables and booths (in this ONE of possibly EIGHTY rooms of the Black Forest Restaurant) are inhabited. But my stomach sinks again when I see that the people at these tables are, to put it lightly, old as fuck. I think to myself, what time is it again? Oh yeah, it's almost 7pm, the day before a huge holiday and this place is empty.
Now, if I have learned anything from Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares it's that this is an incredibly bad sign. We are seated in a booth that seems to have been installed in 1980 and not cleaned since then. The great thing about this booth is that it allows us to see the rustic design of this amazing place. It looks like something out of a National Lampoons Vacation movie. And we are the Griswolds. It's dark, the carpet is old, plain, brown with lots of padding underneath from the years of disappointment that have weighed on it. The music is the only redeemable thing but has probably been the same music since 1952. The decor is in desperate need of redo. About every five feet is a terrible painting of some lake, or cabin, or animal. There are random knick knacks everywhere filled with wrapped red and white peppermints. Perhaps this place was hopping 20 to 30 years ago, but now it just feels like death. The death of the decent meal. The waiter, who is also the host, seems to know what we are in store for, but it's hard to tell how he feels about it because he has probably accepted his fate in this Black Forest world. He is moderately pleasant and hands us a menu.
The Menu:
There is nothing under $16. There are only two items under $20. Most items are between $24 and $38. Domestic beers out of a bottle are $4. My stomach again lurches to my feet and I turn to RJ.
Me: Wow, this place is really expensive for a German place...
RJ: Yeah...wow...
Both of Us: Well, maybe the food is really good...
Now, I have known this particular nugget to be true for most of my life-- sometimes the dirty, outdated dives have the best authentic food you have ever had. Sometimes the dust of the old place is made up for by Mrs. Klaus's amazing homemade traditional schnitzel. This was not that place.
Each dinner item is served with a salad and bread and butter. I pick the bratwurst. Because it's simple bratwurst, it could be really good and is only $16. RJ chooses the Bavarian Stroganoff. It is $24. We order no booze. Perhaps this was a mistake, but actually I think was a blessing.
We sit there in silence still in awe of what the fuck we have just walked into. And then look at each other and see we have exactly the same expression on our faces. This elderly man comes out of the kitchen. He's wearing black pants with suspenders and his shirt is about half tucked in. He is not less than 80 years old.
RJ: I bet that's the owner. That would explain a lot. He's probably owned this place forever and hasn't updated it. I just hope the food is good. If it's not good I don't know what to do.
Me: Me either. Oh my god....I'm going to the bathroom. If the lettuce in the salad is iceberg I'm going to be pissed. Oh my god.
When I return from the bathroom our salads have arrived. They are made from iceberg, which is one of my all around pet peeves in all of restaurant-dom. The lettuce is also squeezed into a tiny bowl. I have ordered the house dressing on the side which seems to consist of some type of oil, red wine vinegar with huge chunks of red onion floating in it. Then there is the bread. The bread...is clearly out of a bag. I had imagined a bread that was homemade, hot out of the oven, and served to me on a cutting board, making me forget all about the horrendous outdated decor and the sad little old man. Nope. No. And...no.
I am still optimistic. "Well, the bread isn't too bad." RJ puts his dressing on the salad, eats two bites and pushes it away. I struggle through it. The iceberg hasn't gone yet, but the haze of brown has started to appear. I pour more onion dressing on it. I must reiterate that RJ is NOT PICKY. Meals I think are mediocre at best, he's okay with. He appreciates and loves an amazing meal but I am the snob in this relationship. He's pretty okay with everything. My heart has now dropped to someone's basement.
About ten minutes later, the waiter brings our entrees. I wish, oh I WISH, I had had my camera with me, but RJ had ordered me to leave my phone in the car (because yes, I am addicted to my iPhone) and I had agreed. He instantly regretted this decision. My plate contained two enormous sausages over a huge pile of canned sauerkraut. It also had two little grey masses of mashed potatoes with (dill?) in it. I take a bite of the little grey mound. It's barely warm, dry and tastes only of dill (at least I was right about the dill). I have a few bites of brat. They have no flavor whatsoever. Like, not even an aftertaste. I keep eating little bites so it looks like I'm eating when the waiter comes over to ask how things are. Fine we say quickly. Now to RJ's meal. It is a medium sized plate that has, separated into three small piles: red cabbage, plain white noodles and meat in some red brown sauce. It looks like a tv dinner. A $24 tv dinner. I have to note that almost everything looks and tastes like it was out of a can--the noodles, the sauerkraut, the red cabbage. If it wasn't from a can, it was made two weeks ago and put in a can somewhere. I look at RJ, his eyes are bigger than I have ever seen them.
RJ: This is terrible. Taste it. (I taste it--horrendous--meat is dry and disgusting). I swear to god this sauce is the same bbq brisket sauce you buy in a tub in the freezer of the grocery store.
Me: Oh my god.
RJ: We can't pay for this.
Me: Oh my god. What do we do?!
RJ: What do we do?!
I all of sudden have a panic attack. Well, not really, but I get reeeeally uncomfortable. Now--I'm a person, having worked in the food industry, who has no problem telling a waiter I don't like something and that if possible, could I try something else. But this meal was SO bad AND SO unbelievably overpriced that I didn't know what to say. RJ was kind enough to offer to talk to the waiter, to be nice and to make sure to leave him a tip. I am so uncomfortable I tell him I'm going to go wait in the car. At this point, the waiter/host has noticed something is up because we've both stopped eating and I've collected my purse. Also, another table has come in, been seated and now have the same look of shock and dread that we had. The elderly owner is going around to the other table asking how things are. Oh God, he's going to come to us next!!! Additionally, we feel bad for him! He makes us sad. Neither of us has ever refused to pay for a meal in our lives. If the meal had been $25 total we probably would have just paid for it. But this was looking to be a $50 meal sans booze and we're pretty damn poor. RJ gets up to go talk to the waiter/host but the old man is standing right by him so he goes to the bathroom to wait him out. I sit there alone and terrified. RJ comes back out and I say, I'm sorry, I HAVE to go to the car. The waiter/host, as I am leaving, asks if I am okay. Fine, I mumble unconvincingly. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (I screamed in my mind.)
As I sit waiting in the car, one thing RJ had said to me earlier in the restaurant takes over my thoughts.
RJ: Didn't you read the reviews? You ALWAYS read reviews.
This is true. I almost always read reviews. But I had thought, since it was so out of the way, there probably weren't many if any reviews AND being so close to Boulder, it can't be that bad. I was expecting it to be just okay. So I sat in the car and looked at some reviews. One five star rating (had to be fake) and the rest were one or two stars. One specifically saying, and I quote, "DO NOT EAT HERE". So...I f-ed up. Big time. And hilariously so.
RJ comes out to the car a few minutes later and recounts his story of extrication: "When I talked to the waiter, I asked him if the elderly gent was the owner. He said yes. I said, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings--especially the owner and I don't mean to be disrespectful, but this is not only the worst German food we've ever had, but the worst food we've had. Ever. The waiter asked what was wrong with it and I replied that my dish tasted like frozen brisket sauce out of a tub. The waiter then started to pick up the plates. I once again apologized and told him I was leaving him a tip. He seemed slightly agitated but said, 'that's okay, it happens sometimes.' I read into this that it probably happens a lot to this poor guy. He said he'd be back. I sat there for a few minutes and he did not return, so I left $10 on the table and went out to the car."
RJ and I sat in the car stunned, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. We felt like we had just been through some terrible accident together. In a way it was so heartbreaking because either this old guy had no clue about how bad his restaurant was and no one had the heart to tell him, or he was going along in life knowingly serving horrible food at ridiculous prices. Either way, tragic. But luckily we drove home laughing hysterically about it and ended up having beers and Cosmos bread sticks at the Grown Up Bar in Boulder. Never in my life have simple, homemade bread sticks for 6 bucks EVER tasted so good.
